


wide ruled; spiral bound

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (And Memories Found), Backpack!Fic, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes's Backpack, Captain America: Civil War Trailer, First Time, Journals, Love Confessions, M/M, Memory Loss, Starting a Relationship (Finally), Steve Rogers Feels, Supersoldiers Exploring the 21st Century, notebooks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6326872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The journals, his notebooks were his most prized possessions. They were <i>him</i>, pure and simple, and he'd die before he lost that again. When he lets Steve see them, it's no less than a baring of his soul.</p><p>But it turns out Bucky's not the only one jotting down the things that mean the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> My unending thanks for [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad), as ever, for not saying "Stop you idiot" when I said "I think I'm writing backpack!fic."

He can read a page in the space of a blink, these days, but this: this is different.

Bucky can’t watch him, can’t bear to be near as he goes through the notebooks, offered wordless after everything, after all the running and the screaming and the risking and the death and finally: the horrible, hopeful quiet.

For now.

But Bucky can’t watch him, and Steve can’t spend very long outside the sphere of Bucky’s presence, close enough to feel his warmth and watch him breathe, so it moves in pieces, parts. This process.

The reading of a life in fragments.

The first night, it’s one notebook, and Steve curled up against Bucky’s tense frame on the still-made bed, his voice at Bucky’s ear: “Her name was Becca. You _did_ like blackberries. And yes, the Dodgers used to play here.”

Bucky trembles, and says nothing, and maybe they don’t sleep at all. Doesn’t matter.

Second and third night, Steve only manages a few pages before he goes to Bucky, before he touches soft, testing the waters—the second night, Bucky flinches, but grabs Steve’s hand and holds it to his frame when Steve moves to apologize, to give him space.

“I’m sorry I didn’t follow you,” Steve breathes that night, and Bucky presses Steve’s hand tighter to his skin.

“Everything but my body followed, anyway. And I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

And Bucky shivers, and brings Steve’s hands to his lips: it’s their only point of contact.

It’s more heaven than Steve’s known in all his life.

The third night, Steve presses closer, and Bucky doesn’t flinch, and it’s with purpose that Steve’s mouth ghosts Bucky’s ear: 

“Maybe four dozen, between what’s on record and what isn’t. And you can remember doing it, not planning it, not meaning it. But Buck, there are more lives turned to dust by hands that I had every intention of taking, plotted to the kill shot, took because they were toward some greater good that I believed in that wasn’t nothing but smoke and mirrors in the end.”

Bucky’s body turns to him, then; he faces Steve for the first time, like this, and Steve dares enough to cup his face in his hand and stroke his cheek.

“Who’s the monster?” Steve breathes, and Bucky’s eyes flicker to Steve’s mouth before he leans.

Steve doesn’t remember sleeping better in his whole life than he sleeps after the taste, after the tears, after resting his head on Bucky’s chest and knowing that tomorrow would come and there he’d still be.

And so it goes. There’s no rush. Steve comments enough on where he’s at, which books he’s on, which part of the whole of the man beside him he’s delving into from a distance, but only enough to ease the apprehension that just won’t die in Bucky’s demeanor, in the way he waits with half-chained breath for Steve to find him after he’s turned in and Steve’s turned a page—Steve says things blunt and rusty like “That couldn’t have been you, there’s documentation that you were in cryo that year,” or “Yes, your ma had a dress with lilies all over it, it was her favorite,” or even, choked in his own throat: “I’d forgotten my mom did that with her knitting needles,” as he kisses Bucky’s shoulder and inhales the scent of him, and Bucky turns and threads silver fingers through Steve’s hair and holds close, puts him first after everything, just like Steve has never earned nor deserved.

Until the very last.

Steve enters the room—and it’s _their_ room, at this point, at least in terms of practical use—with the last notebook in hand, wrinkled and cracked across the cardboard cover, the spirals all out of shape. Bucky has to know he’s reached the end, because he lies as tense, as motionless and stiff as that first night, and Steve doesn’t know why he’s so scared, because of all the books, this was the softest. The most certain.

And Bucky _can’t_ be second guessing whether the words, the confessions near the end are welcome. Are returned with the full force of Steve’s full-beating heart.

Except he’s Bucky. And he’s shaking under Steve’s hand when Steve reaches for him, offers him the closed notebook. And Bucky doesn’t even seem to think as he grabs for it, holds it to his chest like a reflex, like a comfort, and the way Bucky makes himself small around it breaks Steve’s heart all over again.

But Bucky had written it. _He loved you, you know. Sun in the sky, that’s what he thought. That’s how he thought of you._

And then, again, at the very end. Present tense.

_And god, Stevie. I’m sorry. I know I’m damaged goods, and it’s been too long, and you’ve got a life, but goddamnit. God damnit._

_You’re the sun. You’re still the sun, and I love you more than anything_.

Steve gathers him close, and dips his head against Bucky clavicle, and sobs for all that was lost, and stolen, and found in pieces. He kisses the line of bone and the hollow where the heart pumps wild for all that’s found, that’s been given anew, that’s been offered and the ability to piece it together. To piece _themselves_ together.

“You’re _my_ sun, you fucking jerk,” Steve gasps at the base of Bucky’s neck, and clings all the harder, feels the outline of the still-clasped notebook guarding that thrumming heart against his own chest, digging into his skin, but he doesn’t care. Couldn’t care less.

And Bucky’s chest is heaving, and when he drops the notebook to frame Steve’s face Steve grabs for it, drops it to the floor to keep it safe before covering Bucky’s hands with his own and looking into those eyes: astonished, conflicted, but more than anything else overwhelmed with tentative, fledgling hope and Steve in turn hopes that when he leans in and kisses Bucky the way he’s wanted to kiss him all their lives, with passion and reverence and hunger and need and all the life he has because all he has is _Bucky’s_ —Steve hopes, in turn, that he’s read this right.

And on paper, in person: given the way Bucky pushes just as hard, kisses just as strong, and holds him just as fierce in return, Steve thinks: yes.

He read this _right_.


	2. Two

Bucky stares at the ceiling long into the next morning, long after sunup, long after Steve kisses him head to toe: sensation, now that it’s stopped burning, is elevated to the level of pure bliss, and the fact that it’s Steve’s lips, Steve’s tongue, Steve’s hands—that’s heaven after so many years of hell.

So he allows himself the pleasure of basking in it while Steve makes coffee, simply because he can, because Steve says it’s allowed, because he _knows_ it’s allowed because he’s free to do it, to have it.

How, he’ll never stop asking, But _god_ , he’ll take it with both hands and be fuckin’ grateful. 

He stretches, and tries to see, as Steve told him more than once the night before, how the creak of bone and the whir of components come together to make something gorgeous and singular only to him, and that that in itself is worthwhile; his eyes squint open to save him the trouble of it just now because there’s Steve, sleep-ruffled, eyes big and bright and so much like the strongest, the clearest of Bucky’s memories.

Steve settles on the bed, and pauses, like it’s still a question, before he leans.

And so it’s Bucky that leans in the rest of the way, and kisses him deep, and basks in this, too: the making of new memories, bold and sweet and shaped like those lips.

When they break, Steve hands him his mug, then reaches beneath his arm to grab for something else, and hands him that too.

Water-stained and warped with it; torn at the corners, tiny.

A notebook.

“You let me see them. You let me see _you_ ,” Steve murmurs, and stares at the book in Bucky’s hands. “You trusted me with it.”

“I trust you,” Bucky finds himself saying, without thinking, and regretting nothing: “with all of me.”

Steve blinks up, and again: those _eyes_.

“I love you,” Steve says, clear and strong and so full of feeling that he shakes with it, or maybe it’s Bucky who’s shaking, still amazed; or maybe it’s both of them.

Maybe it’s both.

“I love you so much, and I,” Steve swallows, and tries to clear his throat of a sob. “I can’t thank you enough, for letting me see these,” he gestures to the journal still left on the floor. “To know this part of what you’ve been through, of who you are.” 

“I love you, and I never want there to be a thing you can’t tell me, or show me, because you are everything you’ve known, and been, and done, and I love every piece of you.”

Bucky hooks a hand at the base of Steve’s neck and draws him in, sucks at his lower lip in full agreement.

“And I don’t,” Steve gasps between Bucky’s nips and tiny kisses. “I don’t have the same thing? I didn’t suffer like you did, and I—”

“Not a contest, Stevie,” Bucky breathes at the corner of Steve’s mouth, then; pulls back and buries his face in the crook of Steve’s neck.

“I thank whoever’s listening at night that it wasn’t you.”

And suddenly their positions change, and it’s Steve buried in the crook of his neck, the hollow of his throat, the rise of his chest and the wetness there is quiet but steady, and Bucky marvels that he can offer any comfort, that he can give Steve anything, let alone all that Steve seems to see in him: he clutches Steve’s body the way his own body’s always known how, and Steve falls into him for a moment until his breaths even back out, until he lifts his head and looks up at Bucky through those tear-clumped lashes and breaks his heart, and Bucky loves it, every moment of having a heart for breaking.

Steve clears his throat, and straightens a bit, red-rimmed eyes back on the book in Bucky’s lap.

“Like I said, not the same,” Steve nods, voice rough. “But, I want you to see?” He glances upward, a vague note of pleading in his voice. “I want you to know that, this works both ways. We’re both different. Banged up in some places. You’re never alone. And you’re never anything less than loved with all the heart I’ve got.”

He reaches, and lifts the tiny notebook to Bucky’s chest, where he presses it, and it’s not lost on Bucky that it’s how he held his own journals: precious. Everything.

He covers Steve’s hand on him with his left hand, and holds.

“And so,” Steve nods again, and meets his eyes: “for you. If you want.”

Bucky’s fingers tighten over Steve’s, over the book, over his heart, and he nods, now. Because the answer’s yes.

Always.

“I’m gonna shower,” Steve says as he gets up, and Bucky understands. He can’t be there to watch.

So Bucky lifts up to kiss Steve, quick but sure, and only flips a page once the door snicks closed.

 

________________________________

 

_~~Steve Jobs (Apple)~~  
~~Troubleman (Soundtrack)~~ _

\-----

_His eyes are dead. He’s breathing and he’s moving but his eyes are dead and he doesn’t know me and there was a second where I thought maybe there was a chance. A miracle. Maybe we didn’t both die without it ever being said, maybe we’d have a chance_

\-----

_The doctors give me two weeks for recovery. I can’t wait that long. The trail’ll go cold.  
It might already be too late, and I can’t_

\-----

_What if I can’t find him?_

\-----

_Sam obviously knows I’m looking for more than just my friend, my past. He’s not stupid. He doesn’t judge me for it. He’s a damn good friend, and I don’t deserve him. He told me to go home, that he’d keep looking while I deal with some of the SHIELD fall-out. Got a little drunk and said a soldier’s no good without heart, anyway._

_I feel that, real hard._

\-----

_~~Star Wars~~ / ~~Trek~~ (definitely Trek)_

\-----

_A city was flying, and it was our fault._

_A city was falling, and it was our fault._

_I’ll take it to the grave, but all I could see was a wire and a track and the snow, and it felt right, somehow. Felt the right way for it to end._

_Should have known it wouldn’t. Couldn’t be that lucky._

\-----

_He’s back._

_He spoke to me, he looked at me and saw me and oh god, sometimes I forget how I used to be, how my body used to be, how it used to feel when my heart would start skipping and jumping and racing til it hurt but oh._

_I remembered just fine, when his eyes met mine and he was there, inside them. Hurting so much it made my chest hurt for even more reasons, but there. _

_And maybe I’m a fool, but all I can see in him, beyond all the heartache and the confusion and the rage: all I can see in him is what it might be to hold him again. To finally taste him and tell him everything that’s in me, caution be damned._

_All I can see is the tiny shred of possibility that could be what it means to love him outright. That tiny shred is my whole world._

_He’s my whole world. I think maybe that never changed, really. Just got shoved down far enough where I could pretend it wasn’t there, that it didn’t snag and draw blood every time I breathed and I could only push through it because that’s what I am, now. That’s how they made me._

_Fool or not: he’s back. He’s everything. And, I…_

_Maybe._

\-----

 _ ~~Thai Food~~_ !!!

_Good shit, Stevie._

_That’s what he said. More words than he’s put together for me since the fight, since Tony and—_

_Good shit, Stevie._

_First time he called me Stevie, too._

_We’re gonna have a lot of Thai around here._

\-----

_I’m jealous of it._

_I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t let me touch him. Clasp his shoulder. Brush against him in passing. Lean when there’s somehow too little room between the two of us on the couch._

_But the way he holds that goddamn backpack of his, sometimes, when he thinks I don’t see—_

_He holds it the way I wanna hold him. He holds it the way I ~~want~~ need him to hold me._

_Selfish. I’m so goddamn selfish I can’t even stand it._

\-----

_He caught me staring today. He didn’t even ask, no ‘What’ or anger or suspicion or a raised eyebrow, just resignation, and god, I just wanted to go to him and hold him and never let him go._

_But he said, ‘I know,’ and I didn’t understand until he looked down at his left arm with disgust and shrugged, shrunk, and yeah, I’d been staring at it._

_It’s beautiful. Magnificent and impossible, just like him._

_And I should have, I couldn’t stop myself. I jumped up and took his left hand in mine, squeezed like we were on the Cyclone and I was trying not to throw up, and something in me makes a break for it, something in me snaps and I can’t stop it, because my free hand went straight to my mouth to hold a kiss that I pressed to his arm, right above the red, like he used to when Becca skinned her knee._

_Stupid. Fucking stupid._

_He was the one staring once I finally let go._

\-----

_~~Dance Dance Revolution~~ _

Buck says he’s not surprised I’m still doubly-left-footed even with a fuckin’ diagram and pointed arrows. 

He wouldn’t give it a go himself, but he watched with interest, and curiosity almost, I think, and he grinned a little sweet-like when he spoke, and that’s good enough.

That’s enough.

\-----

_I wonder if he can see it. I know I can’t hide it. I know it’s in everything I do. In the way I watch him. In the way I smile. It’s warm and it’s so big and I couldn’t try to make it small and unnoticeable if I tried. He never noticed it before, I guess, but it’s grown since then. Everyone can see it, now._

_Sometimes, I wonder if he remembers what love looks like. If he recognizes it, even. Then I feel horrible about even thinking that, and then he comes over and asks what’s wrong, and I remember that it doesn’t fuckin’ matter what he remembers. Just that I love him._

_And he’s here._

\-----

_~~Berlin Wall up + down~~ _

_Buck told me all about it. Freely. It was on TV, and he just launched into it. Told me what he remembers._

_It felt like a privilege. It felt like a secret. Intimate, somehow._

_I can still feel my heart pounding every time I swallow._

\-----

_He fell asleep next to me on the couch. Slumped right against me, and let me shuffle away enough that I could guide him down against my lap and stroke his hair and he only hummed, and leaned in closer._

_If the world stopped turning in those moments, I’d have been okay with it. If my heart had given out for how full it felt, that would have been fine._

_He was with me._

\-----

_I made him dinner. His old favorites. He smiled at me and cleaned his plate for the first time in...maybe ever, since he’s been back. Asked for seconds—and that was definitely a first. Looked shy for doing it, but asked anyway._

_I wonder if he understands that’s the only way I’m allowed to say it. The only way I’m allowed to shout I LOVE YOU, JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES from the rooftops. The only way I’m allowed to hold him close and feel him breathe and clasp his hand in mine and touch his face and kiss his lips. It’s the only way I can._

_I’d take care of him to the end of the universe. It’s the only ‘I love you’ I can say._


	3. Three

Steve’s heart thumps heavy to the sound of Bucky’s footfalls as he comes out to the living room. Steve can even feel the jump of a drop of water from his hair follow the jump of his pulse at the throat as the water drop glides down his skin.

He doesn’t know why he’s nervous, exactly. Save that he’s just bared his soul.

“Hey,” Bucky’s hand is on his shoulder, on his jaw, against his cheek even as Steve stares at the floor.

“Don’t forget to breathe, punk.”

Steve’s huffs a laugh of sorts—weak, but there, and Bucky hooks a thumb beneath Steve’s chin, nudging his head up.

“Look at me.”

And Steve doesn’t even need to consciously think about all the moments in his life when he wished he had the chance just to _look_ at Bucky Barnes; he doesn’t have to think about it, it’s automatic, it’s ingrained in his bones and so when the words come, Steve doesn’t have to choose to look up.

It just happens.

“I love you,” Bucky says, soon as their eyes meet. “I did forget what the word was, for a while,” he admits, and there’s a noise like a whine in Steve’s throat, but Bucky just cups his face more dearly, strokes the line of his cheek gently. “But I think maybe that’s because I didn’t see it, and it didn’t match the feeling, whatever memory I did have pushed way down.”

He waits until he can see in Steve’s eyes that he’s been understood. That the good outweighs the bad in the moment, even as the memories come from hell. 

“What you make me feel, though?” Bucky says, close enough now that Steve can feel Bucky’s breath on his lips. “Soon as I could feel again, Stevie, I knew,” and the thumb on Steve’s chin becomes the thumb on Steve’s mouth as Bucky traces the full give of Steve’s lower lip.

“I knew.”

Steve doesn’t hold back the sigh that comes, at that, or the whimper that follows when Bucky draws back, just a little, and presents Steve with something small. Flat.

A notebook, one Steve hasn’t seen before.

“Don't look so scared,” Bucky soothes him, before Steve even knows what he’s feeling is terror: some horrible thing that hadn’t yet been disclosed waiting in the pages, that he’s read and taken and known before any other thing and yet still: Steve doesn’t _want_ to think of any more hurt between them. He wants that to be done for a while.

Foolish, maybe, but Bucky seems to hear his thoughts.

“I think,” he says, laying the journal in Steve’s lap and patting it, somehow meaningful. “I think no matter what comes next, the scary part’s over.” His gaze flicks up, and he smiles small.

“We've got each other again.”

And Steve can hold on to that. Steve can live in that, for now, and breathe easier. 

Yes.

“Go on,” Bucky urges, nodding at the spiral-bound book, and Steve breathes in deep, braces himself: thumbs it open.

Frowns, now, before Bucky can stop it.

“It's blank.”

Bucky grins indulgently.

“Exactly,” he says, almost excited, and that’s enough to make Steve almost excited too, just to see it, that expression on Bucky’s face.

“You had those lists in yours,” Bucky goes on. “Things about this millennium worth giving a go, I take it.”

“Yeah,” Steve nods, thinks of his first iProduct, and meeting Sam. “Yeah, something like that.”

Bucky nods, a little shy, but so much more brave.

“I like the idea of making new memories,” he finally says. “What say we start our own list? Explore this brave new world, yeah?”

Steve’s heart’s been doing the swelling thing a lot lately, but this.

This might be the point where it bursts entirely.

“Go to the future,” Steve says softly, overwhelmed by the notion; the promise. “Just like you said.”

“Yep,” Bucky grins. “Few decades overdue, maybe, but I'll take it.”

“Together?” Steve’s voice is small, the question asked before he can stop it, and Bucky’s eyes soften, deepen, as he takes Steve’s hands in his own and holds tight.

“Of course,” he breathes. “‘Til the end of the line.”

And that, Steve can definitely do.  
________________________________

“We saw it, Buck,” Steve says, and he’s getting better at not feeling _too_ sad when Bucky comes across gaps in what he knows, what he remembers. Improvements have been made, at the very least. “When it came out.”

“Yes, all fifteen times, I vaguely recall,” Bucky rolls his eyes, and if Steve’s getting better at not feeling too bad, it doesn’t mean his insides don’t get tight at the reminder; the roll of those eyes uncoils them, leaves him feeling soft and light from one moment to the next.

“But have you seen it,” Bucky leans in; “since? In the now, since you can…”

And Steve picks up on what he’s not saying: since he can see it. Since Steve can watch and appreciate the colors for all that they were and all that they meant and the wonder, the magic of it.

No. Steve hadn’t.

He feels his lips curl in a smile, and Bucky watches, and that’s all that answer he needs.

________________________________

_~~The Wizard of Oz~~ Note: Apologize to Natasha about comments made regarding the uselessness of Blu-Ray technology._

________________________________

“The song?” Steve asks as he reads the line, a little puzzled. Bucky grins cheekily.

“Not as such.”

It takes Steve a minutes to get there.

“ _Oh_.”  
________________________________

_~~Summer of ‘69~~ Note:  not just for summers._

________________________________

“Seriously?” Bucky asks after reading over Steve’s addition to the list, and seems genuinely shocked.

It’s a good look on him.

“I’m not saying I’ll be any good at it.” Steve says, partially defensive. Mostly a little sheepish. He has very clear memories of the few times he’d given it a whirl in the past.

“You won’t,” Bucky assures him, but it’s not cruel. Mostly, it’s still shocked. “But I never thought you _liked_ it, even in theory.”

“Told you,” Steve shrugs, and feels his cheeks heat up as he ducks his face. “Was just waiting.”

It’s well worth it, though, at the smile that lights Bucky’s face.

“And the time has come?”

Steve grins back, nods toward Bucky’s boots. “I won’t break your toes.”

Bucky’s smile somehow finds a way to grow even wider. “And your lungs won’t give you any trouble.”

He leans, and kisses Steve hard and quick, like an exclamation point as he replies simply:

“Name the date.”  
________________________________

_~~Dancing, without any double-dates~~ _

________________________________

Steve smirks as he reads the new line. “You’ve got a real hard-on for that one, huh?”

Bucky glances over from where he’s sprawled on the chair opposite where Steve sits.

“Pretty sure you’re the only one I’ve got a hard-on for,” he drawls, and Steve feels the sound rush through his veins with abandon. Speaking of hard-ons—

“We’ll call this a,” Bucky pauses, thinking; “we’ll call this a persistent enthusiasm of mine.”

Steve rolls his eyes dramatically. “We’ll call this grand theft auto.”

Bucky clutches his chest. “Stevie, you think so _little_ of me! Honestly, you think I can’t lift a car and get her safely back before anyone notices?”

Well, Bucky does have a point.

Nevertheless, Steve still has reservations.

________________________________

_~~Drive a Flying Car~~ I, James B. Barnes, would like to state that, despite opinions to the contrary, Lola fucking  loved me._

________________________________

“You talking crossdressing?” Steve asks, brow raised as he reads the newly-penned line. Because—”

“No—”

“I’d give it a try.” Steve shrugs, because, well. Try anything once and all that.

Bucky’s mouth promptly snaps closed. Steve thoroughly enjoys watching the rolls of the hard swallow down the line of his throat.

“Duly noted,” Bucky half-chokes out, before he gives into a full body shudder, his pupils blown wide as he breathes. “Fuck.”

“If that’s not what you meant, though…” Steve leans in, because Steve’s not stupid. Double-meanings in such contexts are probably sexual. And as Bucky gets a grip on himself once more and his grin turns feral, Steve’s sure as hell he’s right.

“You wanna wear it?” Bucky asks, tone heady. And Steve, as he said, is up for just about anything, if it’s with Bucky. And so again, he shrugs.

“Why not?”

______________________________

 _ ~~Pearl Necklace~~_ Wanna wear it, definitely, yes.  
________________________________

“You’re not serious.”

“Does that look ‘not serious’ to you?” Bucky points at the tickets paperclipped to the page in their full-color glory.

“Buck, you—”

“Got my back pay once they cleared me of charges, and am currently just as loaded as you, and then some. Apparently, several decades as a tortured POW gets you the golden parachute package.”

He leans in and kisses the frown away before it can take Steve’s expression and make it dark; they’re still learning how to navigate the rough bits, the hard parts of what came before—Bucky makes light because that’s his way, and settling into it once again is a means of healing, Steve gets that. Steve himself, on the other hand, sinks closer toward guilt, and that helps no one.

But Bucky gets that, in kind, and is there. Always.

Kissing Steve’s frown away before it takes hold.

“They do tea in the castles, you know,” Bucky murmurs, light and playful but still just shy of a growl, and that takes Steve from his wallowing, sets his nerves endings alight. “And, as I understand it, you’re allowed to dress up.”

Steve hears the suggestion for what it is, and what he now vaguely regrets admitting to during the Necklace misunderstanding. 

“No.”

“But you _did_ say—”

“Not _there_.” Because there are limits, and it’s _public_ , and there will be children and he’ll get recognized and it could be good but it could also be very very _bad_ , because while he knows he can play off the good ol’ geriatric catering to the kids, he also knows how Bucky’ll look at him, and he knows what that look does that not even a dress would be up to hide, and—

“Spoilsport,” Bucky finally pouts, cutting off his internal monologue and brooding for a moment before brightening once more. 

“What about, like, just a tiara?”

Steve maybe tosses a throw pillow in Bucky’s face a response.

________________________________

 ~~ _Disney World_~~ _(plus a private tea with a handsome prince ~~ss~~ , because someone apparently thinks it’s blasphemous to besmirch the good name of classic animation with a little kink, what a fucking crime, you’ve totally seen the dick-shapes hanging out in Little Mermaid, Steve, don’t lie.)_

_^ Your prince wore your fuckin’ tiara, asshole. We’re square for the time being._

________________________________

Bucky just stares, when he sees it. Steve almost gets nervous, but then he catches the sheen in Bucky’s eyes—not a bad kind, a good kind—and he thinks he got this right.

“We always talked about it,” Bucky says, with a surety that’s starting to crop up increasingly often when he talks of their past. “I think I was close to it, on the way somewhere.”

And his own past, separate from Steve’s: that’s starting to get spoken of like exactly what it is.

The past.

“Not that I've had the free time, but,” Steve perches on the arm of the sofa, and props his chin on Bucky’s head: “I've outright avoided it.”

He couldn’t have borne to see it without his Bucky.

He doesn’t know who reaches for whose hand, just that their fingers are suddenly intertwined. Bucky squeezes, and Steve just grins.

“Shall we, then?”

________________________________

_~~See the Grand Canyon~~ together._

_^ Goddamn sap_

_I think we’ve earned it._

 

_Touché._

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


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